I read this piece at All Freelance Writing and nearly wept with frustration and joy. At some point we’ve all said something like this, either on our blogs or to our freelance colleagues.

Don’t act like you’re hiring a full-time employee. - I’m shocked by how many people request formal resumes and such from potential freelancers. What’s worse though is that today I saw a company asking for things like cumulative GPAs. Folks, these traditional requests are fine if you’re hiring an employee. They’re often completely overboard when hiring someone for short-term per-project gigs. Instead look at their portfolios. Their work will speak for itself. (And frankly, there’s no reason you need someone’s GPA to hire them as a part-time, freelance blogger. That’s just silly and makes a bad impression – this particular advertiser came across as absurdly demanding for example with their list of requirements.)

I’ve seen ads like this. They’re so frustrating, because obviously some automaton in HR drafted the ad according to company hiring policy for employees, and no one has a clue how to hire a contractor. Ads for freelance writing gigs that ask you for transcripts or a list of every job you’ve ever had since McDonald’s when you were 15 are completely out of line (the exception being anything that requires a government security clearance, of course). You want to hire me as a writer, but want to know about when I mowed lawns in college? How does that apply in any way, shape or form to me writing your marketing copy?

And you want free custom samples? Are you on crack? Tell ya what: I’ll do for you what my tailor does for me. If I want something bespoke, I place a deposit that covers the cost of materials. Then if I return and hate the piece my tailor made for me, I lose the deposit. No hard feelings - we’re both covered. I don’t have to buy the piece, and he’s not out of pocket (this happened once with a pair of leather pants when I was a dominatrix - we moved on and continued our professional relationship). Seriously, do you go to a restaurant, eat a meal, then tell the waiter it was “just a sample” and you shouldn’t have to pay for it since you didn’t like it all that much? If I were the waiter you tried that on, I’d punch you in the stomach repeatedly till you vomited, thereby breaking you of a very bad habit of ripping off restaurants.

I’m so glad Jennifer wrote that piece. I think it should be sent to every person who places an unrealistic and ludicrous ad on Craigslist, looking to exploit freelance writers.

I had a strange and somewhat amusing situation with a potential client a few weeks ago I thought I would share with you.

I had applied for a website content gig, through Craigslist if I remember correctly. I heard back from the client later the same day, and she seemed really excited to get things going. We chatted back and forth before I sent her some samples to give her an idea of what I could do for her.

Her response to these samples? “They do nothing for me.”

Ouch. Nothing? Not even make you itchy or something?

At first I felt like I’d been slapped, but I figured I had a chance to save this business relationship if only I dug deeper to find out what the client was really looking for (her instructions had been somewhat vague at the outset). So I asked her some questions about exactly who she would be marketing to, and more importantly I asked how hard a sell she wanted. My samples had all be very soft sells - suggestions more than anything.

I never heard back from her again. I really did “nothing for her” I guess.

Instead of being upset, I found the whole thing rather funny. What a way to address someone in a business transaction - a dismissive comment with absolutely no critique as to why you didn’t like it. Clearly I wasn’t meant to work with her. She wasn’t - as Havi Brooks always talks about - one of my right people.

So I didn’t let the rejection get to me. I got right back on the horse (I love that analogy, because I once was actually thrown from a horse and got back on it. A proud moment indeed) and kept plugging away to find my right people.

The very next day after this absurd rejection, I got a call from a guy who not only liked my work, but liked my mouthiness. My style. He was one of my right people, and I had applied to him on the same day as I had applied to Little Miss Not That Into You. I’ve been working with him ever since, and we’re getting along swimmingly.

Look, I hate rejection as much as the next person. I’d make a shitty telemarketer, because I’d probably cry all day. But I believe in myself, my talent and my product. I know someone else out there will, too. It just might take a little hunting is all.

I strongly suggest that anyone who wants to break into freelance writing or blogging for a living tries Ali Hale’s Staff Blogging Course. Do a read-through of the 6 modules, then go back and put the lessons into practice. I did, and have since scored TWO THREE blogging jobs in the last three weeks. Cost of the course: $19. Income of jobs I’ve scored: $125/wk. $180/wk.

Most of us bloggers use them. Those oh-so-brilliant, algorithmic ads (you can see them on this page, at the bottom of this post) that are supposed to know what your readers are thinking. If you are an advertiser, they are a great way to get the word out about your product. You bid for placement, your ads get popped into searches and on websites, someone clicks to learn more about your product, you pay for the click, and maybe you score a sale from it. Whee!

This morning I opened an email from my hosting provider (1and1) telling me that they, too are getting in on the act as a Google authorized reseller. Hmmm… So here’s what they offer (screen capture):

I plan to check this out, only because it would make billing easier for me. I’ve been with 1and1 for more than five years, and it would be great if I could have all my services come in together, instead of having separate bills for hosting and for advertising.

If you are interested, click here. Their hosting and tech support is great. I’ve always gotten prompt service from the guys on the phone.

Awesome free templates for Wordpress over on Crazy Leaf Design Blog.

Some of them are absolutely gorgeous, and I’d love to just switch every day!

Make Crazy Leaf one of your daily reads for news about freelance, design and inspiration.

Even when it’s a hobby, it’s a business. If you love it and are passionate about it, you’re probably devoting hours to it every day. It’s as time consuming as (and way more satisfying than) golf.

Five years ago when I started mine, I had no idea that one day people would be paying me to blog. WTF? Seriously? Wow. It began with a few ads and paid posts. Hmmm… then people were contacting me to come write for them at their blogs. Some were even offering to pay me!

And I’m not the only one.

There are numerous ways to expand your client base and increase the size of your portfolio. Common tactics used to do this include utilizing your contacts, taking part in relevant discussion forums, being active in freelance marketplaces and even watching industry specific job boards.

One idea that is implemented by some people but certainly not by everyone, is blogging. Sharing your abilities with the world in the hope that the right person finds what you have to offer. Through my experience though, quite a few people fail to have any success when trying to use this strategy.

Today I want to share my own story, and how I made over $20,000 in 4 months when my only source of clients were through blogging.

Now in this article Glenn discusses how his blogging was a matter of marketing, and that’s how he drew clients. It’s a brilliant way of showing off your abilities both as a writer and as an expert in your field.  I get gigs writing about politics (especially in areas of terror and religion) because that’s my thing. If your area of expertise is pet care or life coaching, that’s where you’ll drum up business.

In addition, if you’re a good blogger, you will be asked to write blogs. Companies love adding them, but no one has the patience or ability to actually write the posts. Enter the freelance blogger. A 500 word blog post can earn you upwards of $20 (Actually, it could earn you $1 if that’s what you’re willing to take. Another time we’ll discuss the quality differences between an escort and a crack whore, but not today). Get a few gigs writing 3 or 4 posts each per week, and you have a nice little income. It’s a sweet deal, if you’re doing something you love.

I strongly suggest that anyone who wants to break into freelance writing or blogging for a living tries Ali Hale’s Staff Blogging Course. Do a read-through of the 8 modules, then go back and put the lessons into practice. I did, and have since scored TWO THREE blogging jobs in the last two weeks. Cost of the course: $19. Income of jobs I’ve scored: $125/wk. $180/wk.

Back in April I did ProBlogger’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge. Ok, by “did it” I mean I signed up and didn’t do ANY of the tasks on their assigned days. So sue me. In fact, I kept the emails highlightes as unread in my inbox, so that I could peruse them at my glorious leisure. I’m uh, still perusing.

One of the lessons was “Pay Special Attention to a Reader”.

The Task - Choose one (or more than one) of your current readers and do something out of the blue that acknowledges them, shows them that you see them as valuable and highlights them to your other readers.

Why This is Important

While many blog tips going around focus upon techniques to help make bloggers and their blogs more famous and well known one of the paradoxical keys to blogging success is that many bloggers who build great blogs actually go out of their way to make their readers more famous and well known.

I actually did this before the course began, by holding an anniversary contest at my site. I published the great works of my readers, then chose one out of the many to highlight and grant a prize to. This wasn’t a contest for drive-bys who are new and have no intention of sticking around. This was for my loyal readership.

After all, without our readers, we might just as well be LiveJournaling behind a locked account like a bunch of emo teenagers. If a blogger blogs and no one reads, did they really type a word?

All of my favorite bloggers (on the political side, anyway) have done this at some point. Not always with a contest, but certainly by pointing out the value of their individual readers to others. I wouldn’t go so far as Ann Althouse and actually marry a reader, but I also never say never!

Darren’s ProBlogger course was full of ideas like highlighting a reader, updating old links, writing reviews and of course - increasing traffic!

He kindly put it all into one tidy downloadable workbook for all us ADD bloggers, so that we could do that perusing thing and not get sidetracked by our email accounts. At twenty bucks it would be a bargain at double the price. But Darren knows that most bloggers aren’t wealthy, and that the current economy sucks. He didn’t feel the need to rape us over the price, which I think is great. Especially since he’s backing it up with a guarantee:

If you’re not satisfied with the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog work book after 31 Days Just let me know and I’ll refund your money - that’s how confident I am that this is a resource that will help you build a dramatically better blog.

I picked the workbook up so that I wouldn’t have to shuffle through my inbox to find something. I printed it out and took a highlighter to it, marking up the areas that I need the most work on. And slowly but surely, I am working on them.

If you’ve been blogging for a while and have hit a traffic plateau, Darren’s challenge might be just the thing you need to break out of it. Remember, a few extra readers every day really adds up after a while. You can get the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook here. Good luck, and let me know how it turns out!

Bloggers beware: A recent ruling out of Great Britain could severely limit the things you think you can get away with saying on the web.

In a landmark decision, Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an order to protect the anonymity of a police officer who is the author of a blog called NightJack.

The officer, Richard Horton, 45, a detective constable with Lancashire Constabulary, had sought an injunction to stop The Times from revealing his name.

In April Mr Horton was awarded the Orwell Prize for political writing, but the judges were not aware that he was revealing confidential details about cases, some involving sex offences against children, that could be traced back to genuine prosecutions.

So here’s the thing. You can blog all you want, say whatever pops into your mind, but you aren’t anonymous and should have no expectations thereof. Which means trolls, for example, should reconsider their potentially slanderous or libelous words before hitting the publish button. Also, don’t blog about your work if you want to keep working there.

Personal story: I used to work for a large telecom company. I discussed my news/politics blog with my VP, and we agreed that I couldn’t write about the company. I did argue however that because we owned news and print publications, they should not be off limits from critique by a political blogger. That was granted, and I got on with my blogging. There were a couple of times that my company did something I wholeheartedly didn’t agree with, and I had to bite my metaphorical tongue. Conveniently, a dear friend of mine worked for our main competitor. She had the same agreement in place with her superiors. So we would often blog about either other’s companies for plausible deniability. Shazam. How hard is that?

Which is not to say I never got a spanking from higher-ups, especially when our corporate communications department mistook me for a terrorist. Oops. But I knew that being a controversial blogger could lead to, uh, controversy. While everyone has the right to speak their mind, it doesn’t mean your every utterance is free from repercussion. That’s why we have libel and defamation laws. And anti-stalking legislation. You can’t undermine other people’s work or life without facts to back you up.

Remember, if you’re not willing to say it under your own name, maybe you should rethink saying it at all.

A hectic day loaded with media led me to be a bit off my game yesterday. I left the apartment without my front door key. Oops.

So after taping a TV show, shooting a tax protest, lunching over policy and beer, I headed home. Only I wouldn’t be getting inside anytime soon. Damn. Solution? Starbucks. I picked up a cheap notebook from the Bargain Books section of my local Indigo bookstore and went upstairs to settle into ‘bucks for quiet contemplation and coffee.

Instead, I was accosted by an effusive blond woman with incredible turquoise eyes. “Have you heard about what we’re doing here today?” Being the miserable misanthrope that I am, I nearly shoo’d her away. That would have been a terrible mistake.

Crystal Campbell is a personal coach. Her business is helping you focus your life on what matters. Stuck in a dead-end job? She helps you find hope. Laid off due to the recession? Maybe now’s the time to start doing what you’ve always wanted to do, instead of listening to others’ expectations of you.

As for what Crystal was doing accosting me at Starbucks, that’s the best part. The International Coach Federation and GTA Coaches partnered with Starbucks to raise money for charity. The coaches, Crystal and her ICF/GTA Coaches colleagues, were offering a 25-minute recession-busting session called “Coaching Conversations for Power+Possibility”. Coaches are life consultants, and they charge consultant rates. But the 25-minute session could be yours for a $5 donation to the United Way. Sweet deal!

A team of more than 70 life and career coaches descended on four Toronto Starbucks locations to help those effected by the recession find light at the end of the tunnel. But… What is a coach?

A coach, according to Crystal, can help you find your “passion, potential and purpose.”

In the current economic environment, she says “It’s too easy for people to have spiraling conversations and slip into discouragement and despair. Mass layoffs, scary as they are, “give people an opportunity to pause. To get off the treadmill.” A coach can help them discover what truly matters most to them. Their strengths, their passions, what success means to them as an individual, and what steps they can take to reconcile it all together.

Ok. Why Starbucks?

“Starbucks already promotes a sense of community.” Many people come to Starbucks with conversation in mind (apparently even misanthropes like me, though we may not know it). It was the perfect fit. Offering coaching to the wider community, plus helping United Way “seemed like the right thing to do in a recession.”

Crystal originally studied journalism, getting an undergrad degree in it. She quickly learned that hard news would never be her area of interest. “I loved doing the feature pieces, connecting with people, teasing their story from them.”

The next phase of her life took her into corporate marketing and communications. She loved getting a company’s message out, playing with words, writing copy, but “I felt I was becoming too distanced from the end user.” So she switched tacks again. This time to counseling.

She enrolled in a master’s program to get her counseling degree. I asked her the difference between a coach and a shrink, and why she chose the former over the latter. “Counselors are extremely important, but it wasn’t something that fit with my personality. They deal with a lot of the past, and a lot of pain. Then I come bounding into the room with a big ‘HI!’”

Fair point, and one I can certainly relate to. I have excellent client-facing skills, but I was terrible as a real estate agent for the recently departed (I worked in a cemetery). The first time a couple came in needing to bury their child, I quit.

Crystal: “I’m still working through my master’s, but I enrolled in Adler International Learning to become a coach.”

She’s been at it for four years now. “My specialty is career coaching and corporate leadership.”

I asked her if she had a coach of her own, knowing that every therapist has a therapist. “Absolutely!” And what area do you and your own coach work on? “Whatever I bring to the table.” Career, family, time management and more.

When I think about what I wrote the other day, about how early in every freelancer’s career they face the ’scared to death’ phase, I see where coaching could be an important asset to any entrepreneur.

Crystal Campbell runs c2coaching + consulting from her home just outside Toronto. Her career and life articles can be found and Canadian Living Online and in the Financial Post. Crystal can be reached at crystal@c2coaching.ca.

Ok, my boss is a psychotic, moody, mouthy bitch, and I never know how foul a mood she’ll be in at any given moment, but then again: This is no different from my last corporate job. And at least now I don’t have to get up at six to do my hair.

I love buying groceries at 10am on a Wednesday, when it’s just me and the little old ladies with their social security money. No more rush hour dinner planning for me.

I love not having to go downtown regularly. I still go, but not every day. I get to stay in my Midtown apartment and avoid the sweat and stink and urine-y taste that pervades Downtown Toronto.

I love Office Depot. Yes, also at 10am on a Wednesday, when it’s quiet. I love ogling the notepads and pretty gel pens, the agendas and binders… I was the kid who thought buying school supplies was the ONLY reason to go to school. I got off on it. I don’t actually buy much of what I ogle because I don’t really need it, but I still love gawking at it all.

I love Topless Wednesday™ and No Pants Friday™, the celebratory casual days of the home worker. Denim Friday? Pfft. How about flipflops and shorts? Every day is Margaritaville if you work from home. (ask me how I do all this shopping on Topless Wednesday™ - go ahead, you know you wanna)

I love making money doing what pleases me. Five years ago I started my political blog. Now I get paid to blog for others. You can too. I get paid to sit at my laptop and play with words all day. I get paid to think up new and exciting ways to say things that are neither new nor exciting, but sound that way when I’m done with them.

I love new media. I love my podcast, and I have lots of time to experiment with and improve it.

I love that I’ve come to terms with running my own business. Freelancing has a scary period in the beginning where you’re terrified that you’ll starve to death. But that scary period can be your downfall if you don’t get a grip. You have to let yourself be free to try new things.

I love that my “office” comes equipped with a Chihuahua and two cats. They never gossip at the water cooler. They never criticize. They do, however, stink.

I love being able to look at a project and say “this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen” and then pass on it. I couldn’t do that in corporate, or I’d get fired. Now I have control over the work I do.

Sure, being a freelancer has its downsides, like budgeting and marketing. But at the end of the day, it beats being someone’s bitch, wearing heels, and getting jammed like a sardine into a stinking subway car.

I strongly suggest that anyone who wants to break into freelance writing or blogging for a living tries Ali Hale’s Staff Blogging Course. Do a read-through of the 8 modules, then go back and put the lessons into practice. I did, and have since scored TWO blogging jobs in the last two weeks. Cost of the course: $19. Income of jobs I’ve scored: $125/wk.

I’ve written before about Naomi Dunford and IttyBiz. I think she’s the bees knees or the donkey’s unit or whatever.

Anyway, Naomi wants to give a workshop in the UK - live and in person, which is something she never does - before she heads back to Canada.

It has a typically Naomi-esque name: Fuck Realistic.

And if you live in the UK, she wants YOU to attend.

It will be really small. 6 people? 12 people?

It will be called Fuck Realistic. I don’t even really know what that means but my gut says that’s what I should be giving a seminar about, so that’s what I’m gonna do. Probably something to do with skyrocketing the living shit out of your ittybiz.